Squatting in a catcher’s stance, Michael Bennet gave a sly smile to Mayor John Hickenlooper as a hanging slider smacked into his glove.
“That one might have moved,” said Bennet, the Denver Public Schools superintendent. “Maybe a little bit.”
Their game of catch Sunday at Civic Center park marked the fourth year of Hickenlooper’s “annual rite of passage into spring.”
Usually a friendly toss between Denver’s mayor and Colorado’s governor, Bennet stood in for Gov. Bill Ritter, who was in Washington for the weekend. “We couldn’t find him today,” Hickenlooper said.
But being called off the pine for last-minute relief is a role Bennet said he knows well.
“I’ve spent my whole life riding the bench,” he said. “But I still love to play, even if it’s in left field to end the game.”
Hickenlooper had another reason to dust off his glove and loosen up his right arm. He will share first- pitch duties with Ritter at the Colorado Rockies’ home opener today.
“I always was a ‘junk ball’ pitcher in high school,” Hickenlooper said.
Staff writer Sean McDonald can be reached at 303-954-1661 or smcdonald@denverpost.com.
